AGU/AGI Heads and Chairs Webinars

The American Geosciences Institute is collaborating with the American Geophysical Union's Heads and Chairs program to provide critical support for geoscience academic departments. One of the key activities of this collaboration is the monthly webinar series that is available for anyone to participation in, but which are specifically designed to address issues raised by geoscience department chairs.

In this webinar, Jeffrey Ryan (University of South Florida) and Mike Schackne (S&ME, Inc.) look at the history and strategies of implementing a successful partnership between industry and an academic program at the University of South Florida.

Change management is one of the most critical skills for department heads. In this webinar, Ben Wolfe (University of Kansas, Edwards Campus) examines approaches to leading your department through different types of changes, and how to address issues of resistance.

In this webinar, Sharon Mosher (Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin) discusses the the results of the 2015 Summit on Undergraduate Geoscience Education Employers workshop. Results of surveys on skills and competencies expected by employers is also detailed.

In this webinar, Christopher Keane and Heather Houlton from AGI's Workforce Program provide an overview of competency-based approaches for higher education, including examples of programs using this approach rather than traditional course structures. This webinar also looks at a recent AGI/AAG study on terminal Master's programs and how their outcomes align with employers needs, which reflects an application of a competency-based structure.

In this webinar, Rebecca Haacker (SOARS Center for Undergraduate Research, UCAR) and Robert Rauer (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) discuss best practices in doing geoscience research with undergraduates.